Stupid Foot Ruins Weekend.

I finally got a run in over the weekend. I went up to the gym because I was a bit concerned about how my left foot was going to feel so I wanted to have other cardio options around. Is it just me or do you feel like a total slug after a week of no cardio activity? I was so anxious to get moving again! Anyway, on Saturday morning, I headed up to the gym and jumped on the treadmill. I started running and it felt great. In the beginning, it was kind of like walking on a hardwood floor in a really old house - lots of creaking and other odd sounds/feelings - but once I got into it, things loosed up nicely. That is until minute 12. All of a sudden, wham, the foot started hurting. I had the speed up at 6.8 so I bumped it down to 6.5 then 6.2 then all the way to 6.0 but the pain persisted and kept getting worse. Then, since I was doing a weird run/limp thing, that stupid unknown pain in the top of my right foot started in! Shit. I dropped the speed down to 3.0 and walked for about a minute or two then, just because I was pissed off, started running again at 6.5. I'll be the first to admit that (a) it was probably stupid not to stop, and (b) I'm about as stubborn as they come but I kept going until I got 4 miles in. Then I hobbled over to the rower and did 20 minutes on that because I was so dissatisfied with my run. As a side note, I was wearing my Polar F11 and burned 195 calories in just 20 minutes (set at 7) on the rowing machine! I was pretty surprised by that number, it was way more than I would have thought.

So after that, I headed out. I was going to try the elliptical as well but had a moment of smartness and decided against it.

On Sunday, I was limping big time from the moment I got out of bed. Usually, the left foot doesn't cause me to limp until towards the end of the day so I knew this wasn't a good sign. When I looked at it, it wasn't swollen but it had a very deep red, almost bruise like, area all up the outside of my foot and on the top just below my ankle. Nice. Today, the redness is almost gone but it still hurts and I'm still a bit gimpy.

I have no idea what to do about it. I'm thinking about giving it another week before heading back to the Podiatrist but we are leaving for Spring Break on Saturday to head down to my mom's for a visit so it will really be 2 weeks. What to do?? I am going to try my best to not run on it. I am (insert stubborn girl here) going to go spinning today and see what happens there. I really want to see if it's just the pounding that causes the pain that makes me have to stop and if I can handle a non impact cardio. I'm kind of anti-podiatrist right now because I don't think the orthotics helped me and he did nothing but shrug his shoulders about my right foot pain (top off foot, near ankle) and tell me it's because I overpronate. I'm assuming I'll go in and he'll tell me it's painful because I just ran a marathon and to rest it. I can do that without a copay. So there. Yeah, I'm a pain in the ass.